EDITORIAL: 2013 on the coast: A look back

Published: Monday, December 30, 2013 at 04:41 PM.

As befits a year ending in an unlucky number, 2013 in Northwest Florida brought some grim news: A war hero died, three people were killed in a church van crash, three died in a boating tragedy, a beloved middle school teacher was slain, and other accidents and crimes claimed lives and broke hearts. But the year now concluding also had its share of good news:
No hurricanes pounded our shores.
No offshore rigs went up in flames. No oil spilled.
No big new political scandals erupted (although a former Crestview police major, Joseph Floyd, was convicted of racketeering).
Even the forced military belt-tightening of sequestration, which some feared would rattle the local economy, wasn’t so bad. Early in the year, civilians in defense-related jobs were bracing for 22 days of unpaid leave; their furlough days eventually shrank to fewer than half that.
Overall, the local economy fared quite well in 2013, plodding along with the rest of the nation in a slow but solid recovery from the Great Recession. At the beginning of the year, Okaloosa County’s unemployment rate stood at 6 percent; by year’s end it had fallen to 4.5 percent. Next door, Walton County began the year at 5.6 percent and ended at 4 percent. Both counties boasted jobless rates that were among the strongest in all of Florida.
The economy was so healthy, in fact, that some folks started complaining again about the evils of growth. Destin City Council members grumbled about high-density developments (called Tier III projects in bureaucratspeak) and tried to ground helicopter sightseeing flights. When word came that the Emerald Coast Convention Center on Okaloosa Island had finally been paid off, some people muttered that it should never have been built.
Yes, there are folks who will say something negative about anything.
We’ll probably hear from them again in 2014. Let’s just hope the year’s news is so rosy they’ll find it tough to toss their usual barbs.
Happy new year.

Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published
without permission. Links are encouraged.

As befits a year ending in an unlucky number, 2013 in Northwest Florida brought some grim news: A war hero died, three people were killed in a church van crash, three died in a boating tragedy, a beloved middle school teacher was slain, and other accidents and crimes claimed lives and broke hearts. But the year now concluding also had its share of good news:
No hurricanes pounded our shores.
No offshore rigs went up in flames. No oil spilled.
No big new political scandals erupted (although a former Crestview police major, Joseph Floyd, was convicted of racketeering).
Even the forced military belt-tightening of sequestration, which some feared would rattle the local economy, wasn’t so bad. Early in the year, civilians in defense-related jobs were bracing for 22 days of unpaid leave; their furlough days eventually shrank to fewer than half that.
Overall, the local economy fared quite well in 2013, plodding along with the rest of the nation in a slow but solid recovery from the Great Recession. At the beginning of the year, Okaloosa County’s unemployment rate stood at 6 percent; by year’s end it had fallen to 4.5 percent. Next door, Walton County began the year at 5.6 percent and ended at 4 percent. Both counties boasted jobless rates that were among the strongest in all of Florida.
The economy was so healthy, in fact, that some folks started complaining again about the evils of growth. Destin City Council members grumbled about high-density developments (called Tier III projects in bureaucratspeak) and tried to ground helicopter sightseeing flights. When word came that the Emerald Coast Convention Center on Okaloosa Island had finally been paid off, some people muttered that it should never have been built.
Yes, there are folks who will say something negative about anything.
We’ll probably hear from them again in 2014. Let’s just hope the year’s news is so rosy they’ll find it tough to toss their usual barbs.
Happy new year.